LIKE or SHARE if you think online petitions are kind of a thing of the past

A pair of strange political bedfellows have banded together to make Parliament take online petitions more seriously than the current system, which still favours print.

B.C. New Democratic Party MP Kennedy Stewart — who originally submitted the proposal — has somehow found support from icons on opposite sides of the political spectrum: Former NDP leader Ed Broadbent, 76, and former Reform party leader Preston Manning, 70.

While the enthusiasm expressed by these septuagenarians — both of whom are now at the helm of think-tanks — sounds great on the surface, it also bolsters the case against digital democracy.

After all, what lesser act of “slacktivism” is there than typing your name and email address on a page headed with a pre-written statement?

Such a gesture might feel satisfying to Canadians of a certain age, whose petition signing is more likely to be spurred by an emailed link and less likely to emerge from the random avalanche of social media.

But merely seeing a petition linked with a plea on Facebook or Twitter doesn’t seem any more likely to generate success, either.

Who wants to leave behind one more digital crumb that can be Googled? Support of a potentially controversial cause may not be worth the search-engine result for the rest of your life.

Stewart’s proposal suggests that a certain number of signatures — “for example, 50,000″ — and the sponsorship of at least five MPs would be necessary to have a petition automatically heard in the House of Commons. The current system requires 25 or more signatures on paper followed by up to 45 days to hear if the government will acknowledge it.

Sure, support from Broadbent and Manning shows that both are equally eager to help steer Parliament into the 21st century, yet there’s something to be said for old-fashioned discretion.

Privacy concerns surrounding an e-petition are in fact more likely to be held by someone who grew up with a screen name that was distinct from the one on their birth certificate. Those factors are less likely to be considered by the kind of retiree who regularly gets riled up enough to write a letter to the editor.

Groups involved in putting together online campaigns directed at the powers that be in Ottawa have moved beyond the basic petition approach, anyhow — even if they haven’t written them off entirely.

But the social change agency Public Response has gotten more attention by using Facebook to encourage like-minded Canadians to spread memes among friends and followers.

via Public Response

The campaign mounted in late December on behalf of Idle No More and Chief Theresa Spence generated 5,493 letters sent to Prime Minister Stephen Harper — and the desired meeting was held about two weeks later. Maybe this wasn’t the over 200,000 who clicked “Like” on the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament group on Facebook in 2010. But the slactivist gesture was easily dismissed by the Conservatives being targeted.

Similar efforts have been mounted in recent years by the Vancouver-based group OpenMedia.ca — which came on the radar when it spread the message that Canadians didn’t want their Internet use to be metered by companies unwilling to provide unlimited bandwidth.

Putting a whole lot of faith in a list of names — even tens of thousands of them — therefore seems to be a thing of the past. Getting the government to take e-petitions more seriously could discourage the evolution of more imaginative approaches to getting the government’s attention.

After all, an enthusiastic reaction to creativity has always been worth more than a scribble on a page — especially when it’s virtual one.